The Balkan Odyssey - Travels Around the Former Yugoslavia - Oh and Albania too! - Jason Smart (Bosnia, Croatia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro, Slovenia, Albania)

Travelling through cities and towns once ravaged by the Balkan Wars, Jason Smart witnesses first hand the beauty of this much-maligned region. With his friend, Michael, they find out that the Balkans is not a region to avoid; it is a part of Europe to explore and embrace.

From the urban sprawl of Belgrade, to the tranquillity of a glacial lake in Slovenia, the pair experiences the Balkans up close. Find out how they end up in a rickety clock tower in Macedonia, do battle with a sticky nemesis in Kosovo, and learn that Albania had a king called Zog.

The Balkan Odyssey is a journey through every country of the former Yugoslavia (and Albania too). Join Jason as he visits Serbia, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Croatia, Slovenia, Montenegro, Macedonia, Kosovo and Albania.
I love books like this, as they a nice quick and easy read on a subject that I love (travel), presenting an opportunity to cover several possibly difficult to find countries in one book for the Around the World Reading Challenge. Smart has written a whole series of books on his adventures around the world, and they are all very well priced at no more than £3.99 each. I suspect I shall end up reading every single one of them.

I enjoyed his witty writing, detailing a whistle stop tour of the former Yugoslavia, not forgetting of course Albania, which had to be included as Smart and his travelling companion Michael had to travel through Albania to get to some of the other countries they visited. Smart gently pokes fun at his travelling companion who is walking satnav with a love of museums, unlike Smart himself who has not a cultural bone in his body. Somehow they get along without killing each other, which is sadly more than be said for those who inhabit these former Yugoslav states.

Chronicle in Stone: Ismail Kadare (Albania)

In a seamless mosaic of dreams and games, Kadare's young narrator both reflects and distorts events as his ancient, magical home town and his own innocence and sense of wonder are lost forever in the madness and brutality of the Second WORLD War. A disturbing mix of tragedy, comedy, politics and sexuality, Chronicle in Stone is a fascinating early masterpiece from the winner of the inaugural Man Booker International Prize.

Ismail Kadare was born in 1936 in Gjirokaster, southern Albania, the same town in which this book is apparently set. He studied in Albania's capital Tirana, and Moscow, returning to his homeland in 1960 after the country broke ties with the Soviet Union.

I found this to be a beautiful and eloquently written book, based on a childs perceptions of war - the outbreak of WW2. The age of the child is unspecified, but one wonders whether this book is at least autobiographical, given the age of the author and the fact that it is apparently set in his hometown. The child, whomever and however old he is, has a vivid imagination, seeing images in raindrops and imagining that the echo from the cistern is an actual voice and therefore consciousness, answering hin back.

Life is not easy for this child, as he grows up in one of Europe's most superstitious countries, steeped in tradition, where any form of moral transgression is severely frowned upon - the men as they say are men, and the women, women, who have to know their place. When the boy pays a visit to the local slaughterhouse, he tries to imagine what the slaughter of a nation would look like, and sadly it is not too long before he begins to find out.

The first sign that anything is amiss is when an aerodrome begins to be built. The narrator is excited by this event, imagining the planes with their own personalities, just like people, but the adults around him recognise that this is the first sign of war. Then the blackouts begin, with his house, or rather the cellar, turned into an air raid shelter, where half the villagers, or so it seems, seek refuge. As the air raids intensify, the villagers begin to share their stories, one by one, and we learn what makes these people tick.        

The city oscillates between Italian, Greek and German control, with each vying among themselves as the most hated occupier. The young of the village, including one of the boys own relatives, begin to join the Partisans (Resistance), but the old among them (mostly women) fear that the young girls will bring shame on their families by mixing so freely with unmarried men. Some are invetitably caught and brought back, but then the Commander of the Garrison is assasinated and the trouble really begins, with executions and all sorts of reprisals, until the Partisans begin to fight and kill each other. When the Italians eventually leave, the Communist Partisans pour in, carrying out what they term as `revolutionary justice', but then the Germans come, following the mass exodus of most of the population into the surrounding mountainous villages. Only a few old women, whom the author refers to as "crones" remain, with a few other brave or foolhardy souls.

From their mountain refuge, their hear the gun fire and see their city in flames, until all goes silent and they eventually return to find the city burnt out and bodies swinging from lamp posts, lynched as traitors and informers. The war is not yet over, but at this point, the book is, with one wondering what happens next.

To sum up then, this is an excellent book, written by one who can justifably be called Albania's national author, it may not tell you everything about that small country, which remains as Europe's last bastion of Communism, but it goes a long way to helping one to understand the Albanian soul.